Found out 8% of guys are colorblind and it changed my whole approach

Was reading a UX article last Tuesday and saw that stat. 8 percent. That's like 1 in 12 men. Suddenly all those comments about my website buttons being hard to read made sense. I had been using red and green combos for status indicators without even thinking. Swapped to icons plus colors and the feedback dropped almost overnight. Anyone else run into this with their designs?

3 comments

3 Comments

brown.susan13d ago

Oh wow, yes! I had the exact same issue with my small business website until someone pointed out my "green" success messages were invisible to a chunk of men.

tara34513d ago

And that's the thing, @brown.susan, this color blindness thing is way bigger than just websites. I see it everywhere now. Traffic lights that blend into the background on a sunny day. Those charging cables where one end is green and one is red - basically useless for a chunk of people. It's like designers only test things on themselves. They forget half the population exists. Really frustrating when you realize how many everyday things are broken for no good reason.

garcia.miles6d ago

Man, you're totally right and here's something nobody brings up - what about tools? I was helping my nephew with a home project last weekend and his dad's measuring tape had those little marks in red and green for 16 and 19.2 inch centers. I'm not colorblind and even I had to squint. That stuff is basically a puzzle for a huge number of people who just need to hang some drywall. The whole system assumes everyone sees the world the same way and it's honestly kinda lazy on the manufacturers part.